


Everything this engineer has ever loved

by meowlmittens



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Leo Fitz Exchange, hella fitz-centric, i guess it's like a prose-poem?, is it a story is it a poem we just don't know, is that a thing?, well now it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 08:18:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4341074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meowlmittens/pseuds/meowlmittens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A list of things that Leo Fitz has loved throughout his life.</p><p>Written for the Leo Fitz Exchange on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything this engineer has ever loved

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agentofskyeward](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentofskyeward/gifts).



> Okay, so this is written for Bea, for the Leo Fitz Exchange on Tumblr. Coincidentally, she was also my giftee for last year's Fitzsimmons Secret Santa!
> 
> Anyway, her prompt was _Leo Fitz loves monkeys and Jemma Simmons._ And obviously I kind of rolled with it, and then rolled away from it, and then it just became this. Formatting here sucks, though. If you want to see the way it was meant to be formatted, check this poem out on Tumblr (link will be posted once it's up).
> 
> I guess there's nothing left to say but that I hope you all like it? Especially you, Bea.

(I love) there is a meadow hidden within the forest close to where I grew up. Picture a young boy with knobby knees and clear eyes, no taller than the wooden dining table in my mother’s kitchen, tottering his way to the center of the grass, clutching a magnifying glass and a natural sciences textbook as large and heavy as my own torso.

I spent my childhood in that meadow; discovering the earth on lazy afternoons, shielded by trees from the cruel taunts of taller boys on the schoolyard. On warm summer nights, I had a basket with me: a flashlight and freshly baked cookies cushioned by the only blanket I was allowed to bring outside. When I was ten and had built my first telescope, I took my mother out to the meadow with me and showed her how well I could chart the sky.

(I love) the first time I went to the zoo was on a school trip. I can still hear the loud chattering of my classmates pushing past me to see the animals in their cages. I liked reading the placards, repeating the scientific names to myself as well as a child can  
pronounce _Phoenicopterus roseus_. At some point I had been pushed aside so far that they lost me altogether.

That was when I found them: _Cebus apella_ , looking just like the pictures in my favourite book; long tails, heads capped in black fur, a mischief in their eyes. I was allowed to bring the only camera we had at home, and I used up all the film on them. An hour later the school calls my mother, in a panic, telling her that I’d been lost. She smiles. She knows exactly where they’ll find me.

(I love) I started high school when I was eleven and it’s a part of my life I like to forget. No one wants to remember the gangly child with wild curls and hunched shoulders, shorter than everyone else. No one wants to remember the kid they pushed around in hallways, who was a year younger than the youngest but years smarter than everyone else.

Coming home was like fresh hair, coming home was solace. I cannot name a day when I couldn’t smell something cooking as I came through the front door. I cannot name a day that mum didn’t set a plate in front of me and watched me eat as she sipped her tea. She never asked about my day, knew better than to assume I had anything good to say about it. So she cooked. She cooked and smiled and listened with patience as I rambled on about switches and circuits she could never understand.

(I love) my life began when I turned seventeen. Two degrees and a doctorate, I packed them in my suitcase and mum sent me off with a tearstained kiss on my cheek. You know this boy: scrawny and freckled with a dorm floor full of jumpers. I was seventeen and miserable—still shorter, still younger, still smarter than everybody else.

I was seventeen and miserable when I was paired with your kind brown eyes. Your accent felt like home, and your smile was warm like our morning tea. _Friend_. I had known acquaintances and colleagues but I had never known a friend. When your sentences found mine on a late night in your room, I tore away all the calendar pages, all the days I had previously spent without you.

(I love) I followed you, jumped headfirst into the unknown and risked coming face to face with every single one of my fears. You wanted to see the world and I wanted to see you; I wanted to look to my side and see you standing next to me. So I jumped headfirst, dreading the day that I might regret ever doing so.

I don’t regret it. _Family_. I have only ever known one family, one person, and she has always been enough. But now I have another mother, quiet and brave. Now I have a father with a firm heart; I have a sister, a kindred spirit. And for a while I had a brother. I jumped headfirst for you, but now I’m sitting with six other people, sharing beers and stories, finding a home within the rubble we thought we could never rebuild.

(I love) you never asked me to follow you but I did, and I don’t regret it. I would follow you into every uncertainty, every open question. I would follow you down the deepest ocean, give you every last breath. I would follow you across the earth, across galaxies, across realms, close every gap that separates us. I would follow you anywhere, all I ask is that you let me.

My life began when you found me, seventeen and miserable. And I followed you—steady fingers, clear mind, with my eyes closed. Things are different now. I’m a clutter, a work in progress, a man so different from the boy who finished your sentences. But some things never change. Your voice still sounds like home, your smile is still warmer than our morning tea, and I would still follow you with every breath, as long as you’ll let me.

\--- ** _Everything this engineer has ever loved_**


End file.
